


Hypno-C

by Gisette (Calesvol)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Blood and Gore, Dystopia, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Oppression, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-06-18 17:57:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15491490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calesvol/pseuds/Gisette
Summary: I want to begin my story in dedication of those who have found themselves forgotten. They will not live to the end of my story. I will not live by the end of this story. But, their story must be known. Can I entrust you with our memories?





	Hypno-C

** Hypno-C **

In The City of Swallowing Shadows

_I want to begin my story in dedication of those who have found themselves forgotten._

_They will not live before the end of my story. I will not live by the end of this story._

_But, their story must be known._

_I entrust you with our memories._

* * *

 

The world once known was purged.

Our sins, our mistakes, our unspeakable wrongdoings—these heralded in guilty, the disillusioned, those torn apart by grief. They knew well about the deceptions placed in their hearts by those promising a change; cleansing would come and rid our hearts of this pain. The darkness was encumbering, but it was much safer than those parading in the glory of their sinful decadence.

A small group of people formed. Their visions melted and merged, becoming the single ideal, a single idea that took root and sickened the world with its truth. Revolutions were waged, leaders were opposed and destroyed. The red flag of rebellion was raised, then burned, its ashes to become new life that became a genesis for a new world.

The faithful hid their sins in shame, knowing that they were too weak and susceptible to corruption to face the wrath of their gods. They felt the shame of all the generations of humanity wage a war within them. Humanity never learned. God, who had created them, was only to be offended with every breath humanity took. They no longer looked up into the sky for guidance, and they ignored any presence felt. Religion was no more.

Art had no use, stories impregnated our minds with useless fallacy, and their morals were never to be learnt. If humanity would only repeat their ills in endless reincarnation, then such things were useless. The creative mind was suffocated and left to rot, until it was no more.

Existence crept in, addled by the emotionless command: seal their hearts, repair the world, destroy all connections. Those in command eagerly obeyed, and the War of Fallen Ashes began. Abortions became rampant, resisters were killed, and suicides were treated like dying heroes. The old and disabled were peacefully eradicated, sent away with the blissful kiss of death. Millions died, and millions more were made to die. Countries emulated that ideal, and then slowly began to see the truth that they had realized but never actualized. Many connections were severed, and many lost friends.

Bodies were burned, secrets were incinerated, and freedom was sentenced to a grisly death; ashes were strewn to fly with sad abandon throughout the world. From it rose something bleak and grey; burdened with idealism and complete control, and yet it was a vision of perfection unlike anything before it.

It was splendid, it was joyous, and the world healed after eons of sickness and starvation.

And yet, our hearts were completely sealed from those blessings.

* * *

 

_Clouds drifted across the sky in a grim armada, blotting out the sun like diffusions of smoke billowing from a desolate battleground. The ruination of steel punctured through the clouds like beastly fangs tearing into soft flesh, corrugated and crippled with rust and the ailment of erosion. Around them these disabled giants loomed, piercing the sky with their bygone memory of a hated age. The ground was cut by roads used nevermore, with ancient husks rotting away in twists and turns of metal. Desolate winds screeched through the endless expanse of human ruination, but a mausoleum to a disgusting memory all wished to forget._

_A pretty girl with a complexion like ebony and darkened hair pulled into tight ponytails rushed through these streets, clutching her teddy bear close and wincing as loose pebbles and small pieces of shrapnel bit into her bare heels, but she continued to run, fear lacing through her heart, beginning to bind it in its slowly enclosing grip._

_Bitter ash stung her pixie-like nose and wide, brown eyes. Small hands held the ragged and torn bear tightly to her chest and panicked breaths choked free from her. She was still a small girl, only six, and yet there was still a predator in her wake._

" _Sissy!" she gasped urgently upon the sight of an older woman, an older mirror image of the young girl, beckoned frantically._

" _Come on, baby!" the young woman cried desperately. She grit her teeth and sprinted to her younger sister in long strides, scooping her up and holding her tightly as a fearful stride propelled her forward._

" _Nora, they're coming!" The woman's eye widened as she dared a glance over her shoulder, coming upon a whole troop of men in crystalline webbing that embraced their bodies in a shell of feral glory, the sheen of the light glancing unnaturally off their artificial skin. They looked human, but she knew that it was all a ruse. When your heart was Sealed, there was little humanity left. Their outfits suited them._

_Wicked looking blades and twisting weapons like webs of crystal on frosted glass were held in their hands, a luminous glow consuming their shapes and pulsating animatedly in syncopation with their wielders' pulse, weapons known infamously as Parasites. The leading member stroked delicate fingers over hers, and it seemed to purr resoundingly as it convulsed and metamorphosed into a long sabre, stretching and lengthening into a wicked point. The mask that conformed anonymously over her face was expressionless as she and her troop trained their masked faces and weapons on the woman and girl before them._

_Greying tones of sunlight were suddenly ruptured by bursts of it, glorifying a lone figure that pushed modestly through their numbers, brushing past warm bodies that were held possessively by their living, crystalline webs of armor that barely shielded their entirety of their bodies._

" _Clear, sir, the two prisoners are here. It seems they want desperately to escape. Amazing that they've managed to survive this long outside civilization without having their hearts Sealed," the woman commanding her emotionless men commented. She hefted the sabre over her shoulder and gave a muffed scoff from beneath her form-fitting mask._

_Slightly shorter than the woman strutting in cruel-looking high-heeled boots, a teenager appeared. He was only sixteen, yet already beginning to grow into a man. His jaw was squared but sharp to a point, lips were pursed, his nose wrinkling at the acrid scent of the Parasites that he hated. His gaze was distant, but possessed a soulful look that struggled to harden. Long black bangs were swept to the side, nearly covering his left eye. He lifted those eyes masked in brooding shadows tiredly, but not enough to study the hapless victims. Were identities allowed, he’d have been recognized as someone Indigenous to the continent, but such classifications were no more._

_Suddenly, he raised his left hand from the depths of his cloak and took in a shivering breath. "Please stand back, Nerv," he instructed the much older, commanding woman with a soft, exhausted voice._

_His fingers reflexively clenched closed as a wave of pain rippled throughout his body. He used the other hand, trembling as it did, to yank his sleeve past his elbow. Nerv flashed her cool stare over the soft underside of the boy's arm, which was defined by a long scar that trailed to the cusp of his hand, punctuated by a painful-looking, circular abrasion on its underside. She frowned subtly in disgust as the boy immediately closed his left eye, his hand beginning to quake._

_An eye slowly formed from the large wound in his palm, enclosed in an intricately gilded trap that circled around the eye, a floating ring around it, nailed into place by large nails that fastened that eye in. Slowly, it lowered from his hand, suspended by veins and bundles of nerves with tracings of muscle fiber, until it lowered enough that that length of the veins reached to his elbows. Nerv stepped away, disgusted by the Memorius-class Hypnotist's summoning of his hypnotic medium._

_The troop around her, though, marveled. Never before had they seen a Hypnotist from so high up in the hierarchy of the Natural Ranks, especially one that used a Hypnotic medium that was a part of their own body. It was said that such a Hypnotist was rarely ever born, and was coveted by many._

" _Just get this over with, Clear," Nerv snapped at the boy, she having a strong dislike for the Memorius._

_Weakly, Clear stepped forward, his eyes trained upon the two hapless victims before him._

_His left eye completely shut, it took him a moment too long to see who it was._

" _Clear?" the voice of his childhood called with desperate pitch. Even though it had been many years, the face of the girl he'd befriended and strongly liked since childhood was before him._

_Clear stared stupidly at her holding a younger girl he'd never seen, but then quickly recollected that the older girl's mother had been pregnant before the Act of Division had been initiated six years before, dividing America into cities according to cultures and conflicting realms of thought, meant to ensure the tranquility of the nation._

" _Pure," he responded weakly, smiling in shadow. He stayed his hand slightly, but not before he heard the telltale rumbling of Parasites._

" _Do you know this girl, Clear?" Nerv asked dangerously, her Parasite glowing an intense red with a flare of indignation. "She's not a Siren, like me, and I know all members of the Natural Ranks, our ranks. Her heart isn't Sealed. If you refuse to do anything, I'll use the Solfeggios and sing her to sleep and get a more competent, and normal, Hypnotist to Seal her heart back at Sentinel." With her ability, he knew that she could do much worse to his friends' bodies with her song, like inflicting terrible disease or other calamities to their psyche. After all, that's what Sirens were born to do._

_Clear's mind raced, and he remembered a method, the only one, that would save them. "Pure is my wife, and her little sister is my adopted daughter," he answered immediately._

" _A kid like you, with a wife? Alright, what's your 'daughter's' name?" Nerv demanded, the guns of her troop still trained upon Pure and Nora._

_Clear's mind raced, struggling to remember the girl's name. "N-Nora," he stuttered softly. Pure gave him a grateful yet strained look._

_Nerv fixed him with a reprimanding glare. "What was that?" she icily demanded, her Parasite flashing crimson with the sudden shift in mood._

_Clear lowered his head and raised his voice. "Nora," he answered with a normal tone. Nerv turned her head away and scoffed._

_Suddenly, he heard a beautiful, lilting song that rose over the ashes of the ruins and seemed to wrap around the structure closest to them. It snaked further away, until a moment of clarity made Clear realize who it was aimed for._

_Pure and Nora sank to the ground, Pure struggling to remain conscious while Nora succumbed first. It wasn't meant to be particularly crippling or damaging, but what she meant to do to them afterwards was what scared him._

_Immediately he raised his hand against the raptured woman in song, the troop behind unaware. Clear sent a burst of his consciousness in a will-'o-wisp towards her that collided with her mind._

_A strangled cry choked out the song, and Clear wrestled for control of her being, winning easily. What he lacked in reality he made up with his consciousness. He seized control of her body below her head, Nerv flying into a rage._

" _Clear! What are you doing?" Nerv screamed in indignation, her Parasite suddenly held up to her throat and flashing out with a cold wink, becoming dead as Clear blocked the mental control needed to control the weapon. It was now just in ordinary blade in her manipulated hands._

_His eyes were shut in concentration, but such a feat was something that came easily to him, far beyond the normal ken of everyday Hypnotists. Nerv unwisely locked eyes Clear's now Hypnotic medium, and she collapsed to the ground, the eye becoming glazed over like a scintillating opal, her eyes matching its deathly hue as his consciousness returned but control was now total._

_He turned towards Pure and Nora, the pair unsteadily rising and awakening and coming to Clear's side. He returned it to Nerv, who had fallen to the ground and was unconscious. The troop stood in a stupor, their hearts Sealed beyond even the simple comprehension that their leader was fallen. Troops assigned to a Natural Rank were always like cattle, robots to be manipulated with a simple command. Clear shakily released her, she now simply unconscious._

_The troop seemed oblivious to the affront to their leader, although Clear knew all too well that another Hypnotist would probe their minds and uncover the truth. He sighed, gasping sharply as his left eye returned within his hand, his underarm making sickening noises and it fused back into his body. He blearily opened his left eye, finding that he was blind. It always took a few hours for him to regain full use of his eyesight._

" _Clear!" Pure breathed in relief, taking the younger boy into her arms, an embrace that Clear gladly returned and that Nora happily shared in. They released, but watched in despondent silence as the troop carrying Nerv disappeared into a flurry of cloudy dusk, uninterred by its nip and sting._

" _It's been awhile," Clear greeted softly, stroking through Pure's short, cloudy brown hair that felt as soft to him. She kissed his cheek, which Clear smiled softly into, a slight blush heating his cheeks._

_Pure and Nora took him by his hands, leading him inside the structure and into safety. In the derelict's skeleton, there were long shreds of cloth that sheltered them from all sides. Pure whipped it away, Nelle scampering through and sitting on one of two rickety metal bed frames with a deflated and deeply worn mattress strewn over with torn and dusty sheets. Crates lined the feeble cloth walls, holding odd trinkets and nick knacks, as well as a few ruined items salvaged without a doubt from the immortal ruins._

_Clear eased himself on a nearby crate as Nora sat next to her sister, the young girl staring balefully up at him, unused to the stranger who was Pure's friend from childhood._

" _How long has it been? Why are you two living like this?" Clear asked softly, face illuminated by one of the few solar-powered lamps within the enclosure. Nora buried herself in Pure's arms, the young girl too shy to face him._

" _You remember Genesis, right? When they started a mass campaign to regrow everything, only on a more massive scale? Well, my town was chosen as one of those places six years ago. I was only twelve, but they only chose a thousand from that big town before they wiped out everyone else. Everyone I knew, just...gone. I was able to save mom, but my dad was lost... We ran away from them while everyone was destroyed. My mom and I lived in seclusion before Nora was born, but she died in childbirth. She and I have been on the run ever since. We came to this area a few months ago and were living here, till they came," Pure shivered, tears rimming her eyes. Clear reached with a hand to cup her face, and she leaned into it, despite the rough scar that marred his skin._

" _I'm sorry that you had to live like that." Clear went to her side, taking the emotionally fragile older girl into his arms. Nora was silent as he did, no longer seeing him as a threat._

" _I promise to protect you," Clear vowed, stroking the tightly curled yet soft hair._

_Pure drew away, sniffing and sucking in a breath. "I'm okay... Guess that makes me your wife?" Her voice was humorless and her face deadpanned. Even when they were children, she always was the one who dealt were her emotions quietly, her strong exterior never faltering._

_Clear swallowed. "It can be in name only, if you want. I just want to protect you and Nora," he responded gingerly. Pure smiled and she sank against him, Clear letting her rest against his chest, against the blasted uniform that would've marked them as enemies had this not have happened._

_In the whistling, haunting winds that carried the cloth shrouds slightly, he thought he heard her say a soft, 'I do' before drifting off to sleep._

* * *

 

Obsideon, smoke, opal, opaque, crystal, clear.

Clear lifted his eyes wearily, blinking reflexively at the outpouring of a feeble yet desolate light, hidden within shrouds of tattered cloth and protective canvas. His hands brushed away thick motes of dust like the fading memory that quietly receded into the depths of his mind. The small confines of the room seemed to rush in around them, allied by a persistent darkness that fought back the light. The walls were pelted with shredded and torn articles of paper that served no true purpose.

He'd thought that he'd never be able to truly recount that day, not after eight years had passed. Already the shadow of his former self seemed too warm for him, scorching him in the present. His eyes had once been innocent and daring trust from anyone who made a friendly advance, but now, at eighteen, they struggled in the cusp of boyhood and manhood, remaining hard and aloof to all except those most precious to him.

Pure was twenty-six, now a fully-fledged woman. She'd always been strong, but now it was more reserved now that she was the wife of a prolific yet secretly abhorred Hypnotist. Nora was twelve and coming into her own. Around strangers she was perpetually silent and answered questions with frightened eyes, but in the midst of he and Nora she was warm enough to chase away shadows with her quiet light.

Shaking away the webs of the past, Clear rose, sweeping dust off his uniform. He came upon a large resting pod blanketed over with shrouds and a coverlet of dust on the length of the dulled glass. He pressed and hand at its head and gently rubbed away the thick layers of dust, coming upon the youthful form of his father inside. Almost a younger vision of the man, he studied the sleeping form and the frosted surface misted by his feeble breaths.

"I need help, dad," Clear beseeched the sleeping form, his voice breaking the fragile silence of the room.

A small, elegantly poised porcelain doll that sat on a tender bed of silk and fluff, its joints creaking uneasily, rose uneasily. It was a caricature of an Impressionist-style boy, clad in a sailor suit and dainty leather boots and ribbon-laced cap. It rose as if pulled taut by invisible strings, manipulated by an unseen force. Clear watched in amusement as it sprang awkwardly on the glass but landed silently like a butterfly drifting on the petals of a flower.

"It's been too long, my boy," the doll greeted with affection. It sprawled itself childishly on its stomach and rested its chin in small hands, face expressionless. Clear merely nodded his head, troubled thoughts swirling through.

Although its face was expressionless, Doll Masters were able to convey enough through the possession of several dolls or figures. As a Doll Master, Clear's father, Peak, was constantly in a comatose state of suspended animation as to facilitate easier remote communication and control of the dozens of figures his soul was imparted into. Because he was one of the oldest and more experienced Doll Masters, such a feat wasn't uncommon.

However, it was panful for Clear. Such a condemnation wasn't much different than death.

The doll nor the frozen features of his father elicited any sort of reaction. The soft blue glow within the glass chamber illuminated his father hauntingly, like the confines of a glass coffin. Clear took his pregnant pause as a moment to speak.

"I've been feeling very uneasy these past several years." Clear's eyes flicked over uncertainly to the chubby face of the doll and its cold blue eyes. "Something feels very wrong."

The doll sat up straight, its shoes limbs tapping intrudingly on the glass with its efforts. "I thought you might come to realize this, Clear."

Clear felt a flush of emotion well up inside him. "Ever since mom died, everything's just felt wrong. It's like the calm before the storm."

"You and I, Clear, we are men of the government. Our hearts remain intact, and yet the world around us remains shallow and pristine. They can't see the things that we have."

Darkness cupped his face and the light kissed it, colored strangely on his dusky olive skin, and yet Clear shivered in its cold. "You've been like this ever since I was born. How much have you really seen?"

"As of now, I control at least twenty figures strewn across this nation like the arbitrary whims of the Sentinel, our government. I've seen much more than you probably ever will in your lifetime," Peak responded evenly, the doll contorted unnaturally for a moment as if to prove his point.

"I hardly ever get to see you, father. What have you seen?" Clear demanded, the memory of him subduing Nerv all those years ago, of the many hearts he'd sealed unquestionably, of the minds he'd penetrated and silenced their defiance forever.

"Why do you ask?" Clear turned away, sighing, before raking his fingers through his unruly black hair.

"There was a boy who's heart I Sealed the other day. He was someone who'd been living in the wilds had forcibly reclaimed. When I probed into his mind, I felt him glare unflinchingly at me from within, even though he'd been subdued by anesthesia. He stalled me from Sealing him at first, to show me memories of crimes staged by Sentinel. The destruction of his town by Sentinel to facilitate a new wave of Genesis, and all I saw was murder, and a slaughter... I thought that Genesis operations were done without violence. I never knew..."

The doll floated like a childish dream to pat Clear's shoulder, and then sat upon his lap. "What you saw was something natural. People with untamed hearts are no better than beasts. Surely you haven't forgotten the deeds of our predecessors and what a passionate and violent heart did to our planet? Rape, war, genocide, environmental destruction, greed...do you honestly want us to revert into that?" Peak's voice dipped into a guttural low, deceivingly gruff coming from the painted lips of an innocuous doll.

Clear's gaze grew hard, then guarded. "What about you? Do you really want to be entombed for the entirety of your life?" The doll was inhumanly still.

He watched as it spirited from his lap and descended silently to the glass coffin, gazing down upon it like the silent reflection of one before a grave. "I felt more limited as a human then I ever have possessing figures. The world was once a terrible place, Clear. You were born in the sanctity of Luna Parvulus, your home. You'll never understand the pain witnessed by those who came before us, those who silently watched as humanity nearly destroyed itself. Would you honestly want that?"

"Not everyone craves greed and destruction, father," came Clear's bitter reproach. His eyes bored into the back of the doll's head, although it was most likely unfelt. "Pure, and Nora, they want nothing but peace. Do you think that they could become power-hungry or blood-lusting?"

"I hate to sound sexist, but Pure and Nora are girls, and very gentle ones at that. Their mother, sealed though she was, knew kindness and so did many people around her. Pure is a good woman, Clear, and women are inherently gentle. Is there really reason to question that when most of the world governments are headed by women? They know peace very well, although they do need protection from time to time."

Clear furrowed his brows slightly. "People wanted this change, not just women or men."

Peak let loose a tired sigh, the doll hefting itself up on the shelf where the doll's cushion rested. "However you wish to see it, humans are destructive creatures. It may seem unfair, but this world is much kinder to everyone in the end, Clear."

He watched as the doll's eyes sank closed and its form slumped forward. Clear rose from his place on the floor, remembering that he'd promised his friend, Flow, that his visit with his father would be brief.

The long pod held the quiet form of his father, and he couldn't help but pity the man who'd seemed to have forgotten his humanity. His mind churned with the thoughts his father had breathed into him, and mulled them over. His face was fixated blankly on its dusty glass surface, ethereal light permeating out and reflecting off the brooding contours of younger man's face. His father looked as if he were submerged underwater, protected forever in his casket.

The firm touch of a hand on his shoulder startled Clear, and he whirled around to see one of the only other members of the Memoruis Class, Flow, a tall African man he'd met two years ago when Clear had first undergone training to hone his powers. He'd come from Africa almost twenty years ago when he was Clear's present age, his family also the victims of Sealing and Genesis, making him the last of them. Now at thirty-eight and blind, he was a powerful Doll Master and Magician, a man that could make even Peak, his father and one of the most gifted Doll Masters, wary.

His face was squared with fathomless eyes sunken into sleepless nights that creased his face slightly. His eyes were fogged from his blindness from birth, but the puppet who held his hand and guided him surveyed Clear with guileless interest, its wooden features pulled into a disturbing smirk and accented mischievous eyes, even though Flow was anything but. He wore a burdensome trench coat over their matching, Memorius Class uniform made from black, finely cut material and embellished with silver accents and piping, form-fitting and neat. He also wore a hat over his cleanly shaven head and his issued boots were scuffed and worn. Compared to Clear, his experience was worn like a badge upon his persona.

Flow silently nodded towards the door, the puppet holding his hand eerily parroting the gesture. "It's about time we left," Flow said wearily, a strong dissenter when it came to the old tradition of Doll Masters entering a comatose state to protect themselves, turning on his heel with a wave of his trench coat as he stepped fluidly from the room.

Clear cast one surreptitious glance over his shoulder before following in Flow's trudging footsteps. Flow, like him, wasn't easily accepted by those of the Natural Ranks. As a matter of fact, the Memorious class Ranks had just come into existence as of ten years ago when several Genesis operations had discovered people like them. So far, only two had been discovered and accounted for and sent to Luna Parvulus, the seat of Sentinel's regime. There was a third, but as far as they knew, this person was either unknown or in training in another country and would be transferred soon.

The tube-like hall was illuminated with two endless ribbons of lights that cast their figures in smoky reflections upon its cunningly smooth surface. They tread almost soundlessly on floors like a flawless stream, everything on the bleeding edge of design. The door to Peak's room slid shut with a heavy puff of air, as it were from an old science-fiction novella.

Clear trailed behind Flow and his disturbing puppet, which looked to him as a demonic mockery of Pinocchio, who led them all forward. Suddenly he stopped, and Clear balked before unwittingly bumping into his stalwart friend. The puppet swiveled its head around and considered him before Flow spoke, the man's figure still trained forwards.

"Were you briefed?" he asked monotonously.

Clear locked eyes with the puppet, nodding. Flow himself turned around, putting a more gentle hand on Clear's shoulder.

"You're troubled," the man said emphatically, which drew Clear's eyes into his sightless ones.

"It's nothing," Clear dismissed, "so don't worry about me. Let's just focus on the mission."

"Alright, but you better speak up if there is. Otherwise I'll have Creeper here have a staring contest with you," Flow teased, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth in a rare display of brotherly affection.

Clear smiled. Flow was like an older brother to him, and he was lucky to have his friend in his corner.

Every structure to be had struck against the sky like wicked bolts of lightning, strikingly light even silhouetted against the grey undertones or the sky like a roiling and angry sea. A random molding of skyscrapers jutting in fierce defiance to the heavens beared their teeth in all their feral glory. Myriad colors sparkled and danced in the sunlight, casting an ethereal pal over Luna Parvulus. At the base of the predator's fangs lay unnoticed sets of lights that let several long, lengthy pods laden with civilian cargo to be delivered to their workstations, think tanks, Relife clinics.

Clear despondently leaned his head against the cool opacity of the glass, his thoughts mired in the fog that pooled around and over the car for several hundred feet. Luna Parvulus was a metropolis based on a cool turquoise lake that spanned around in miles like an ocean. Secreted clusters of forests grew uninterred around the uneven tracts of land and lumped the lake together in a series of pools that grew according to the configurations of the hundreds of skyscrapers arcing and wheeling into the sky. From aloft, the city glittered with the lake hidden away by a pal of fog that embraced the islets of forests and lake in a cool and quieting embrace.

The train hovered over the lights set deeply into the lake that allowed for economical transit through the city, slight splashes of water catching its slick white sides in quick sprays that were immediately slashed away by the wind. They brushed by the many large islets brimming with some of the strongest trees grown in Genesis.

Clear tore his eyes from the magical view of Luna Parvulus's enchanting underworld, finding it once again caught by Flow's disenchanting puppet. In its lap it held a small, stuffed lion that it eerily stroked all the while staring soullessly at him.

"W-What?" Clear stammered in a hush whisper, tearing his gaze away from the puppet's.

Flow smiled slightly. "Your reactions always amuse me."

Clear stuck his tongue out childishly. "Are we almost there? It's been an hour," he complained, rubbing his temples in agitation.

"The route to the Silverwaters is never easy. Why else do you think we've changed stations six times?" Flow shifted, amazingly impeccable and stalwart and betraying no inkling of impatience.

"You're still as impatient as when I met you eight years ago, Clear," Flow said, voice hinted with rare humor from a voice that usually conveyed an icy cool.

The young Hypnotist whirled with ignition towards Flow. "Oh, shut up!" Flow just laughed richly in response.

The childish silence impregnating the air gave way to an uneasy calm before the storm as the train hovered gracefully into one of the megalithic structures.

Clear and Flow waited as the other, painfully silent passengers disgorged themselves into the waiting platform, while the two of them made way behind the onrushing crowds of people.

They were hailed down by a Hypnotist, like Clear. The older woman's name was kept from them, but she did identify herself as L. Her dark beige complexion stood in stark contrast to her pristine white uniform, denoting herself as a normal Natural Rank.

"It's good that you two arrived when you did. They've just made the escape and are trying to escape through the lake. Those Exodi have been making a base camp on one of the islets before we found them. Sneaky devils. We want you to apprehend them, and when you have, Clear and I here will Seal their hearts if they decide to surrender. And if they don't, well, we've got more than enough back-up to take care of them," the strong-looking Latina woman said, her accent strong yet pleasant sounding through her voice.

"Alright, just tell us where to go and what to do and we'll do what we can," Flow replied, staring blankly ahead while Creeper held his hand and stared down the woman blithely.

The station around them was a cavernous place, like an advanced heaven with the dressings of a place that seemed deemed for someone pure, even the ceiling disappearing into a heaven of light. It was ethereal, and they barely made a sound as the three of them dashed through the place supported by columns webbed by cascading inklings of almost imperceptible blue lights. The opaque floor denoted their movements as neon-blue footprints lingered behind them before fading. As they neared the high walls, beautiful carvings of perfect symmetry set in high above them in several segments of the walls that curved inwards.

An arcing window framed the farthest section of the wall, meaning that they would be able to make way to the islet itself soon. Beneath it were incongruous entryways that melted into the gateway to the outside world.

The mild eyes of those around them made no stance against them even as Creeper pushed them aside, Flow holding onto the puppet's hand.

A wide, lonely, and expansive balcony stretched before them, not a normal denizen in sight. Clear and Flow followed the woman as she led them to a far end of the clear glass dome to a separate elevator thinly etched into the ground. They all stood on it, and it caved slightly, making Clear lurch forward a little while L and Flow were perfectly composed. Flow chuckled offhandedly while L stifled a grin.

They sank into a long funnel that afforded beautiful views of the surroundings lower section of the islets and the lake surrounded them, making it seem as if they were heading into a lost natural paradise. An endless void of green stretched interminably into the horizon graced by thin veils of fog that captured the forests in its surreal embrace.

Even as the framing bars of the tube flickered plays of shadows across his face, Clear hardly blinked, still so mesmerized by the endless expanse of the forests.

The descent stopped sharply and Clear regained his composure, again put off by their inhuman steadiness. The door opened and they found themselves in one last sanctuary before it gave way into the verdant wood and the blessings of its fertile boons.

L led them from the glass housing and through a pair of door that slid immediately open for them.

Clear was immediately blasted with an onrushing wall of humidity and the cacophony of the forest and its occupants. Tumbling and twisting tree limbs netted together, myriad leaves huddled so close that the sunlight could only filter through as drifts like stars that shifted with every small breeze. Beams of sunlight split through, obscuring patches of the road ahead. The forest itself seemed so deep and impenetrable that Clear wondered if there were an end to it, like it was a painting that faded into immiscible verdant depths.

L removed a pocket watch from within the confines of her coat, straightening her lapels after she wound the highly polished watch around her wrist, clutching it securely in the palm of her hand.

"Alright, Clear, Flow, the base camp is just up ahead. We'll then depart to Islet 13 to where we last saw the Exodi. It seems that they're either trying to escape to join Exodus, or they're trying to sabotage the city. It isn't the first time that this has happened. It seems like they've been getting more and more aggressive lately, though..." L glanced around the secluded area that they were in, not before she saw Clear forage ahead with Flow, ever led by Creeper, at his side. "Clear, Flow, where are you guys going?"

Clear stopped suddenly and extended his right hand, feeling the sharp tremors of pain reverberate throughout his body and into his mind. L watched in disgust as the eye sank from his hand with all of its metal trappings, followed through with the long bundles of muscle tissue and nerves. He grimaced in pain before surveying the area with that eye, sweeping it around him before walking forward again, bouncing the eye up to be held by its gilded frame.

"They're to the north," Clear affirmed as L drew up to them. Flow continued walking onwards.

"How...?" came L's inquisition of disbelief, eyebrows crinkling together.

Clear looked at her, his usable eye becoming softened and friendly. "I'm still not sure how it happens myself, but my mediums just seem to respond if its within their capabilities." He shrugged in finality before continuing on.

"You Memorius Class types sure are something else," she remarked, walking in tandem at his side.

Clear smiled slightly. "Well, as far as I know, Flow and I are the first of our kind. It's kinda hard sometimes because most of the Natural Ranks don't accept us, and usually discriminate against us. It's not all that great. Flow here, he's a hybrid Magician and Doll Master, and even he doesn't know the full extent of his abilities. It kinda puts us at a disadvantage because we don't know our weaknesses or strengths, and yet, it seems like our latent abilities act on their own. It's nice sometimes, but most of the time I feel like we don't have control over our own bodies sometimes."

L's look became sympathetic, and she gazed at her seemingly benign pocket-watch. "I guess I wouldn't understand what that's like. Since day one in the Ranks, I've known everything about my abilities. My weaknesses, my strengths, what's to come and what'll fade away. I always thought that you Memorius were some kind of gods, to be honest," she admitted, expression tightening in consternation before relaxing again.

Clear leapt over a tree root the ruptured the path. The path ahead of them seemed to feebly taper off into a dense concentration of the jungle, no doubt at the behest of Luna Pavulus seeing that none of its denizens wandered off to join the ranks of the Exodi.

If they had strong enough hearts, that is.

"I suppose if gods sought harm for themselves," Clear replied enigmatically.

They continued on in long bouts of silence, the oppressive and stifling weight of the humidity and heat baring upon their constitutions heavily, feeling especially cumbersome because of their thick uniforms.

Clear's breathing became still as he halted their advance through the consuming jungle, lowering his right eye again and sweeping it quickly across. He suddenly winced as it returned to his flesh, shuddering out a sigh as it did, the pain silently receding, rendering him blind once again in his right eye.

"They're up ahead, less then a mile," Clear stated discreetly. L paused to listen, nodding an affirmative.

Flow stopped completely, Creeper taking Clear's hand, a guidance in his temporarily half-blind state. "Are you ready?" the older man asked simply, eyes sharply narrowing at their quarry's closeness.

L dropped her medium, giving them a moment to ready themselves.

They all came to a line of thick trees, the dense foliage of the undergrowth and their massive girths providing more than enough coverage for the intrepid trio. Clear was at Flow's side, booth of them conferring almost inaudibly, L fairly perplexed by the nature of the two young men.

Nearby lay the shores of the islet, a small group of people readying a crude attempt of a boat, they making last checks to the extremely outdated craft. They all wore torn clothing, indicative of forest living of late, something that most of Luna Parvulus's citizens could never imagine doing. Some looked worse for wear, others a bit cleaner, meaning that this was a party that was gathering new victims of the Exodi.

Unsealed hearts were always a dangerous thing.

L and Flow seemed more poised and confident for battle should the apprehension come to that. Clear suddenly moaned weakly, clutching his head as his cries of pain became sharper and cold through the thick humidity. The escapees curiously glanced behind, into the dense entrapment of nature, pulling out sharply honed objects and crude guns. His screams became punctuated by tearing howls of pain.

Flow tried to clutch his hands over the younger's mouth to silence him, but it was futile. L cursed loudly as she sprang from the bushes, chanting quickly to begin imparting fragments of her will into through it and into their hapless victims.

There were startled screams and bursts of gunfire and the retaliation of attack as Flow took on those uninhibited by L's influence, a concealed crystal blade, a specially modded Parasite, springing from his long sleeves. Like a matryoshka doll, Creeper let a smaller version of itself burst forth from its chest, it taking Flow's shoulder, becoming his eyes while Creeper chattered and creaked hideously as several blades shot out to begin assailing their more dangerous victims.

As Clear lay helplessly in pain, Creeper shot to the downed hypnotist's side to begin fiercely blocking and discouraging attacks from the angered people.

"I be damned before I get turned into one of these goddamn puppets!" an older man of their numbers cried, raising a bludgeon above Clear's fractured form, suddenly meeting the clinking and chattering form of Creeper, the doll moving with inhuman speed to protect him. It parried the man's attack and sent a barrage of blows that disabled the offender, rendering him unconscious.

"Bloody animals!" shrieked a woman. Creeper sped to the woman and cleanly knocked her out.

L furrowed her brows deeply as several people began bending to her hypnotic suggestion, they lowering their weapons and sitting peacefully on the ground, to their knees. Floe took up defense of the older woman, his Parasites morphing around the assailants' weapons with alienable ability, crystallizing momentarily as Flow wrenched his arms to the side and heaving it from any wielder's hands. The Parasites would then liquefy slightly, allowing them to be hurled deeply into the forest, making for impossible retrieval.

One, however, was too smart to be victim to the hypnotist and Memorius. A young woman, barely from her twenties, approached Clear with deathly silence. She quietly brandished her weapon above Clear, ready to turn her mortal enemy into mincemeat.

The blade was brought down heavily, but it never struck flesh.

Clear's body, now completely unconscious, limply rose like a puppet on strings until her hovered on the tips of his toes. Both of his hypnotic mediums were free in held in suspension before her. His eyes, though closed, glow in unholy orbs of light, escapes of a black fog simmering from those lights. His body became slightly shrouded in thin black veils, just enough so that his form was slightly marred the foggy black film.

As if controlled from his eyes, Clear floated forward, gliding soundlessly like a specter over the fertile ground that suddenly withered and became a crinkled brown from his presence. The girl dropped her weapon and screamed, but her limbs were completely paralyzed in place. Everyone, who wasn’t under L's influence, watched in horror at the display before them.

One of his arms became yanked forward by some unseen force, Clear's eye beginning to pulsate heavily with light. The girl became bound in place, her eyes completely fixated on Clear's medium. Suddenly, she began to convulse violently, her body becoming wracked and contorting unnaturally. She began to cough up blood, which didn't even graze Clear's skin. Her pores began to bleed; her eyes began to fill with crimson and flood over with tears of blood; nearly every visible orifice on her body began to bleed.

There was a final sickening sound as the girl's head imploded, a grisly sight that everyone turned instantly away from.

Clear turned hauntingly towards them, his orbs in place of his eyes flashing brightly once.

The world became consumed in fog and black mist that completely erased that natural surroundings. Flow and L watched in horror as the phantom no longer their friend raised its arms wide and long, the eyes rocking as they began a hypnotic dance. Everyone, save L and Flow, stopped completely. Like the smoke of a funeral pyre, Flow and L gazed on as the shadowy silhouettes of their souls became sucked into Clear's mediums one by one, rendering them dead.

After what felt like an eternity, all but three fell dead.

The world became a semblance of peace as the illusion passed, the chill of fear settling like a pal over all of them. Clear's haunting form faded away like smoke, and his body was released to collapse to the ground.

Flow was the first to reach the younger's side, touching the base of his neck to confirm that he was alive. Creeper elicited several snapping sounds as his concealed weapons were again hidden away, the short statured figure then helping Clear to his feet.

L was on her knees, surrounded on all sides by the disaster of Clear's inhumane attack.

"This hasn't happened to him before. You must understand that Clear has no idea what his body may do when his mediums are activated. They're almost beyond his control," Flow explained, rising to stand as Creeper had a firm grip on the younger Hypnotist, proceeding towards them wordlessly.

The older woman gazed up at them, her eyes awash in tears. "Don't you understand? You Memorius... Clear murdered them! These were innocent people we could've easily Sealed! I could've easily Sealed them on my own! There's no forgiving what he's done!"

Flow's brow twitched, and his mouth deepened into a scowl. "Do you honestly think Sentinel spared the lives of those who became victims of Genesis? In case you haven't noticed, if you look very carefully, in these forests you can see derelicts of their lives! If I'm not mistaken, some have even found bones. Bones of people slaughtered mercilessly by Sentinel," Flow replied evenly, levelling her with a painfully sharp look.

"You know as well as I that those people were sacrifices for the greater good! Do you honestly think that an overpopulated planet would be doing them any good? Besides, bones are rarely found. The composition of the trees and other flora makes it impossible for things like skeletons to last long. They're decomposed swiftly," L shot back.

"You're a hypocrite. You mourn these people's deaths, but those of even more innocent people fail to disturb you? You may as well have your own heart Sealed. You have no humanity left," Flow spat, turning away and taking an arm of Clear's around his shoulder, lifting him from Creeper's support.

L shot to a stand, shouting, "I'll have you two reported! You understand nothing!"

Flow said nothing as he and his friends disappeared into the misty breath of the forest.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This was originally from the same story, crossposted from Fictionpress. It was originally written for NANOWRIMO in 2011 and this is a 2018 repost with edits present.


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